Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 2

60 HPV

Schwanz was a city located next to a river. Geographically, this was a good thing as it was the main reason this town flourished, able to have good harvest, and even some fish. Though we were blocked away from the sea by a mountain range.

It was also a bad thing because it made the city an ideal place for one of either revolutionary groups to occupy.

Now, one would think being occupied by the Anti-Elf Coalition would be horrid.

Well... The Elves Shield aren't making themselves better.

I don't know when the label of 'Elf Worshipers' went from an insult to them, to be a very real descriptor.

Somewhere between arguing against elves being different demons, and defending themselves, then ended up going from pointing out the virtues of elves, to just outright say they are the Goddess of Creation's chosen people, and the ones most made in her image.

"Now children, let us give thanks to the Goddess for this bounty this morning, along with her reverent blessed elves." Said the matron of the orphanage I grew up in.

I never stuck around for breakfast, or the 'morning sermon' it tends to turn into.

It's not like I could even blame her. The Elves Shield's presence in the city, and them having control over food distribution meant those who didn't start kowtowing to the idea of any and all elves everywhere, might unfortunately find the food handed to them lessened. After all, they 'needed it most to protect us from those vile, evil Anti-Elf bastards, right?'

It really was all bullshit, wasn't it? Just two group vining for power and using everything as an excuse, weren't they?

It's why everyday now I woke up before anyone to eat a single loaf of bread or the like, before sneaking out of the orphanage to the forest surrounding Schwanz.

The stone walls the Elves Shield was having the city's people build (instead of the wooden ones) will make that difficult soon, but until then I have it easy going to quiet places away to train and, or hunt my own food.

People might think that being a little kid in an occupied town was a hard life, but... honestly, I feel like the adults have it harder.

They have to play pretend to stay alive. Kids can just be kids as long as they aren't seen by the Shields, or just act cute and not draw their attention.

Don't repeat anything you hear is a rule engraved on the orphanage kids. 'You don't want the Shields to think you were bad, right?', at least that's what the matron would say.

Hand me downs were surprisingly nice. The matron wasn't secretly evil or selling kids.

Reaching my usual spot about twenty minutes walk from the city, I settled in to use the rocks and make shift basic pulleys for training.

First, I have a backpack filled with rocks. I carried that and ran around throughout the passing branches, dodging trees, in a wide circular route till I'm back to my training spot.

Then, its time to punch the stone boulder for an hour, or till I feel my bones vibrate.

After that it's meditation.

Immediately I feel it.

Mana.

I capture it, I control it, and lead it to heal my body.

One luck break of my new life is that I was always able to feel mana.

From the moment I became cognizant I was able to do so. I suspect the reason being because my world didn't have it.

Thus having a whole new energy, within the world, and in my body just made it plainly obvious for it that its there. It was never background noise like I suspect people native to this world would feel.

It's kinda like having a past life as a zombie. A heartbeat or warm blood through your veins will be pretty damn obvious.

Ew, wait. Morbid analogy.

I don't know the secrets of mana, or have my own cheat to figure things out, sadly.

I only know what someone who watched the anime once knows. The one season that exists. I'm gonna be pissed if it turns that right after I died season two aired.

Well, since spells are only limited by imagination, I kinda figured plain mana acts the same. Probably.

Having your 'internal energy' (whatever the setting's name for it would be), being able to just make everything about you extra, seem pretty basic.

Circulate mana through the body? Physical heal and mental refresh. It seems pretty obvious. And that's how it went.

That's also why I trained in the forest confidently on my own. My mana sense was something I've honed since I could think.

Of course there were predators and other wild animals. But I knew where every single one of them was in a twenty six square kilometers.

The predators also knew I was the most dangerous thing in this forest, so they wisely left me alone.

After the meditation heal, I went for the exercise again, but this time with a focus on my mana. I try to repress it to the limit, as much as I can, while doing the same physical routine.

It's like... well not holding a fart, but like puffing up your cheeks as much as you can, while trying to talk but without letting the air out.

It's mentally annoying.

Once that was done, I stop restraining my mana, and take one of the tree branches and try running my mana through it. Without making it explode.

I suspect that the reason mages in this world use staffs is because it is easier, and more efficient to channel mana through the wood, into the jewel foci to cast a spell.

Odds are the reason mages do this is because controlling mana is difficult. Plain and simple. Let alone casting spells. That probably would feel like wrestling with the mana, or wasting a lot of it.

However, I remember seeing Flamme being able to defeat three high level demons, or whatever their rank was, without any staff at all.

Welp, better follow the best example of a human mage and do the same.

After five years of this I did manage to run my mana through a piece of wood, or any object without causing it to break, snap, or crack from the inside. Wooden branches no longer splinter in my hands. It still takes some focus, because it's like holding a small vibrating chainsaw within the object, but trying to rotate it through and around the object, without having the chainsaw activate.

God, I wish I knew one spell so I can see if my training is doing something useful or not.

Schwanz' magic shops had been raided and shut down by the Shields. Wanting to 'protect' the people by wanting to keep away magic from any Coalition mage that could sneak in steal them, and then hurt everyone.

Lying fuckers.  

Anyways, after the whole physical routine and mana training is done again, I focus all my mana on body strengthening, and do the physical exercises ten times as hard.

I'm gonna need a new boulder for punching soon. I feel this one only has a few good days left.

Body strengthening is different than mana repression. It's like pouring in energy that feels like hot gas into my muscles, bones, skin, nerves, veins and tissues, till it's liquid, and then trying to keep it there.

Finally after my mana nears the bottom of my reserves, I go about chopping a tree down, and make firewood out of it.

The orphanage makes money from the various jobs the matron has the kids do.

Not actual work, as in job jobs. But rather small stuff like acting as a laundry mat for the portion of the city we live in. Sewing up old clothes that got a tear or two. Stuff like that. Things can kids can help with as a group activity.

The older kids get to help out the lumberjacks. Or carry stuff for workers. After the lumberjack made their daily quotes, anything extra our kids took for the orphanage to sell.

From what the older kids told me, it wasn't used to be like that. The city official used to just give money to keep the orphanage running. Now with the Elves Shield around "everyone gotta help out".

Assholes.

I was technically too young to go out and chop wood, but I brought a lot back to the orphanage, that the matron agreed to turn a blink eye to my 'adventuring'.

With my wooden pack frame filled up bigger than someone my size could reasonably carry.

It took another forty minutes to reach the city. Twice as long as I was walk carefully, using mana detection to avoid any Elves Shield patrol, or anyone really. Never know if I might run into an adult who believes that elf divinity stupidity.

I walk all while suppressing my mana to leak nothing out. I still couldn't manage it. Some bits always leaked.

Reaching the city, I see that the builders are closing in on the area I usually sneak out of. Hmm, I'm gonna have to go through some place else to sneak out from now on.

I walk long way around till I reach the part of the wall toward the shortest route to the orphanage. I focus to feel for any mage nearby. There are two in the city as part of the Shields.

There are not near where I'm at. Neat.

No one is near the area I was at either. Good. Just animals like cat, rats and the like, from the feel of the size of their mana.

I crouch down, channel mana into strengthening, and jump. It feel like rocketing upward into the air, with the pack frame trying to pull me down.

I land on top wall, without a problem.

I feel a pull back.

Uh oh. I move and grab the ledge of the wall, as the pack frame almost pulled me back down.

Phew. I guess super strength, doesn't meant super balance. Or is it that I don't have enough core strength? Something to add to my training.

I quick look around and no one was near by to where I was, and thankfully no one was looking up.

Looking at the nearing roof, I focused on mana detection, while keeping the body strengthening. Doing both while moving used to be like juggling eggs three years ago.

Now? It's like playing a spy game with a map on easy mode.

I jumped and roof hopped all the way toward the orphanage. Eventually the houses started to space out, and I got down to ground level.

This part I needed to be slower and more careful in, as with how big my pack frame was, with all the timber I was carrying, I couldn't turn sideways or pivot easily.

Alright.

Pass from this alley to this alley.

Cross this street.

Orphanage in sight. Need to just get to the storage house...

Huh? I could feel the mana of one of the Elves Shield mages. He was talking to Matron Gütig near the entrance. I should be able to go around the back to dump the timber in storage without being seen—

"You should wait, until Trottel there leaves first, little Trenn." A voice said in a low tone as a hand rested on my shoulder.

I jumped in place, startled.

I looked back to see one of the adult I didn't mind all that much behind me.

"L-Löwenjunges, how did you—Where did you come from?" I whispered back with wide-eyes. The question on my mind was actual, how did I not sense you?

The man was of average height, long blond hair, blue eyes. He dressed in clothes too neat and tidy, that they should be formal, that he turned casual somehow.

Löwenjunges was a traveling merchant that settled in Schwanz a year ago.

He is part of the Shields, but not really. I never got the feeling that he was a stanch believer. Just something saying the things so they continue doing business with him. He's go sell or bring wares from nearby towns and with it any news that came up.

I'm pretty sure he's a run away noble. Or used to be one.

I mean, I have nothing concrete, but I sometimes get the feeling like he's too... educated wouldn't be the word people would use here. Academic? You know, like people who know table manners they shouldn't? It's one of those.

Just a gut feeling.

And because him write on a piece of paper once in cursive. Normal people I saw around don't do that.

I never mentioned it, but he had since wrote more brutish.

"What? You weren't paying attention around you." Löwenjunges said with an easy-going smile, as he shrugged.

"No I didn't. I mean, I did pay attention." I said back focusing on Löwenjunges mana.

There was some instability in it, before it went back to that of a normal adult. Well no, Löwenjunges had the mana of someone physically active and fit, like the guards of soldiers around the city. Or rather a bit more than them. I'm guessing that's from his active life of traveling and all.

There is a different feel for mana between normal people, athletic people and mages.  

A normal person has a lazy like mana that changes with age as is normal.

A fit, active person has mana that, well, it feels like it's higher quality. Almost denser in a sense, and runs faster.

A mage's mana doesn't have that thickness of an athletic person, but has vaster depth. Greater quantity and moves faster like a solider too.

Löwenjunges' mana feels like that of the second type, but he also seems to have control of it, enough to conceal it? Does that make him a mage?

"Hmm? You should work on listening to your surroundings then. I was following you for a while, you know." Löwenjunges chuckled.

"Huh? Since when?" I asked worried. If he saw me, then did someone else? Since when was I followed?

I check, there was no one around other than some animals. Maybe a cat walking nearby—

Löwenjunges can suppress his mana. Could he... did he know about my adventuring and suppressed his mana so I'd mistake it for that of an animal, so he could follow me?

"You see Trottel over there." Löwenjunges said, just moving on from the topic. "He's been asking about old Mrs. Gütig selling more timber than expected. The Shields are wondering overworking the older children, now that some left the orphanage. Since they are worried about the kids and that the matron might be keeping extra money to herself, and not 'offering' the protections the Shield needed."

The Shields take a percentage of any business' profits in the city. A protection fee 'donated' by the charitable city. Basically a protection racket money.

"...It's the start of the week, the storage shouldn't be filled up yet." I said.

"Yep." Löwenjunges nodded.

With a scowl, I hide back into the alley with Löwenjunges leaning on the wall next to me, as the matron took Trottel to show him that they weren't embezzling anything.

I looked back to Löwenjunges who had a kind smile as he crossed his arm, leaning against the wall.

I wanted to ask him if he was a mage. If he couldn't teach me.

I held back the urge. I already had someone I planned to ask, after finally getting my body up to physical standard, when I last talked to him.

Old man Schroff will be coming in a few days to sell fish from over the mountain. Much bigger fish than the river. Or rather as I've come to learn, you can't open up a fish market from river fishes. I guess river fishes aren't enough to sustain a whole city.

Also I don't ask Löwenjunges about his mana control because he never asks about how I can carry thrice my weight in timber.

We just comfortably stand next to each other, ignoring the other's secret.

"You're going to leave soon?" Löwenjunges said out of nowhere, as we watch old Mrs. Gütig and a scowling Trottel come out of the storage house, toward the orphanage entrance.

I looked toward Löwenjunges in surprise at what he said. I don't think I've ever mentioned my future plans to anyone.

Old Schroff was someone I've seen use magic to keep his fish and game preserved. When I asked about him, I was told he was the last of a mountain tribe that used to live in the area, before they moved.

I instantly grabbed onto that piece of information. Southern Lands mountain tribe, that's were the folk spell Jilwer is from.

The old man has to know it! At least I hope so.

I asked him if he can take me on as an apprentice. Thankfully rather laugh me off, he just gave me an impossible challenge. To be able to uproot a tree with strength alone.

He probably thought that would be enough to deter me. Ha! Jokes on him. I learned the size of each tree in the area, and trained myself to be able to life boulders of that size, till eventually as part of my wood chopping, I could manage to just rip the tree out, then chop it.

"How do you know that!?" I asked Löwenjunges, wide-eyed.

"You asked around about ol' Schroff a lot, kid. With how you are, it's kinda obvious." Löwenjunges shrugged.

"How am I?" I raised an eyebrow.

Löwenjunges blinked at me, as if surprised that I didn't know what he was referencing.

What? What am I missing?

Löwenjunges sighed. "You're still a kid." He muttered and shook his head.

I scowled (pouted) at that.

"What's that suppose to me?" Don't talk like I don't have self-awareness or some shit.

"Your very hard working, little Trenn. You always look like you are chasing some far off goal in mind. Not thinking about this fight between the Shields and Coalition like everyone else." He said with a smile.

"Well..." I frowned and looked down. Would it be heartless if I said I just don't care about the civil war. I'm only annoyed about it because it made learning magic difficult, and made my daily life stressful.

The sooner it ends, the sooner I can enjoy magic in this peaceful world. At least that's the plan.

This should be a peaceful world, right? Other than the monsters and demons of course, but hey, where else will I grind EXP.

"Well, looks like Trottel is leaving. You should get going before anyone notices you with that stupidly large bag you're carrying." Löwenjunges said as he moved off the wall.

After some talk Trottel left looking like a sour grumpy weasel.

Ha! Take that you money thieving asshole!

"Löwenjunges!" I said back, making him pause. "Thanks for the save."

He smiled back.

"Come see me before you leave with Schroff. I got something for you." Löwenjunges said.

"What?"

"Sorry," he shook his head. "Can't ruin the surprise."

With that Löwenjunges left, I waited a bit then darted forward and went around to the storehouse.

I sighed as I put down all the timber next to the little pile the other kids collected.

I felt the matron's presence without turning around as she came to the storage house.

"Trenn!" She said, her face alight with a smile. "Thank goodness you're alright." Said the old lady as she took me into a hug. "I was worried when you didn't return early today."

"Sorry, matron. I saw that idiot mage there, and waited till he left."

As the matron fussed over me, I felt a ping in my chest at her care.

I was going to leave soon. It should be fine, right? It's not like I'm close to anyone here.

===

AN: Junges is suppose to be a canon character with a different name. I tried to find as close to a picture of him as I could, although the name should be a clue.

AN 2: Welp, apparently Junges just means "young" without the context I wanted. Junges has been changed to Kater.

Because I forgot this is Frieren and fuck subtly.

AN 3: Okay. Last change, because even if it's on the nose, this is just easier. Junges/Kater is now changed permanently to Löwenjunges.